There may or may not be a few more guys in the picture that I imagine would actually be in a platoon. I've seen a few different platoon organizations for Australians in Vietnam. One had 12 man sections with a mix of L1A1 Self-Loading Rifles, F1 Sub-Machine Guns, M16 Assault Rifles and an M60 Machine-gun... Others I have seen have 10 man sections with either the F1 or the M16 - suggesting that the M16 replaced the F1...? Most of the sections of this "platoon" have one or two of each (M16 and F1) so they could be fielded with either - with about 9-10 men - or both with sections of 11 or 12.

I think these were among the first 28mm figures I painted for Vietnam. They were painted more for use with role-playing games - using Savage WorldsTour of Darkness (I also had fond memories of playing Revised Recon in high school - using old 1/72 ESCI plastic figures)

These are my "Grunts" or "rank and file" American Infantrymen for the Vietnam War - I, for the most part, use them interchangeably as either US Army or US Marines... I know, I know... there are some differences... but most are not big enough for any of the guys I play with to know the difference...

Originally - like most of my forces - I had these all neatly organized into a single standing platoon read for action! The original platoon was mostly made up of West Wind Productions riflemen and a weapons squad from The Assault Group (details of the platoon is detailed in this old post)! Since then I've picked up a few more figures from The Assault Group and others from Baker Company and rather than try to decide who stays or who goes or try to form another complete platoon... I just store them all in a big mess of like-armed-guys and pick and choose as required for any given scenario.

I suppose if I ever built a big firebase and was going to do a firebase defence scenario I might pick up and paint some more supporting elements - HMGs...? Artillery...? Recoiless rifles (especially if said Firebase was in danger of being overrun by PAVN/NVA armour!)

US Armour

Again, i don't have a lot of armour - mostly because most of the engagements I imagined I'd be playing were small-ish skirmishes in teh jungle where armour really played no part. I do have a couple items... just... because...

This little gem that i'm passing off as an M48 tank that I picked up at a dollar store in bag of toy soldiers for $2. I should have bought four at the time and made a platoon - the scale is almost dead on! (I suppose I should have put some infantry in teh picture to show the scale... ah well...)

US Air Support

I have a 1/48 helicopter that I assembled almost a decade ago and haven't quite gotten around to painting... I should finish that up... In the meantime here are some downed crew that might need rescuing...

At some point I'd like to pick up some figures to use as ARVN troops. I thought - for the earlier part of the conflict at least - I could use some West Wind Productions World War Two US Marines - the figures are on the smallish size of 28mm and could be passed off as Vietnamese troops with hand-me-down US equipment (M1 rifles and such)...?

Someday...

Irregular Troops

These troops are from West Wind Productions and sold as "Montagnards" - they seem to be modelled more after Colonel Kurtz's Montangnards in Apocalypse Now than any historical ones. In Tour of Darkness there are some degenerate "Cham" tribes in the deep dark jungle that are recruited to aid the players in the fight against darker darkness... I think if I were to run it again, rather than calling them "Cham" I'd call them Tcho-Tcho tribesmen - to give the campaign a more "mythos" feel...